My flatmate and I had another one of our Thai take away and DVD nights last night. I went and collected dinner and chose the movies. We are always keen to give gay cinema a chance but it so routinely craps all over itself. Last night was no exception. I hired three DVD’s, two gay ones, one of those French, the other from the US. The French one was just a shambles. A guy comes out, then for some reason sleeps with his now ex-girlfriend, who then bitches that he doesn’t look at her the same way he look at the guys he shags. No shit sherlock! The U.S. movie was so filled with cliches it was ridiculous. The over-the-top party boy slut, the very earnest and quiet monogamous couple, who are so boring it hurts, the fag hag, the lying rent boy, and the serious colleague who tries to challenge everything the slut believes in. It’s so good that we are making such progress in our portrayals on film. No wonder we have right wing religious folks condemning us to hell… it’s actually because of our bad cinema.
The third movie was an Australian movie called Gabriel. About Arch Angels coming to earth to fight it out with the fallen dark angels. It tried to be the matrix. It tried to be underworld, it tried to be intellectual. It was none of those things. It did however have Andy Whitfield as Gabriel in the lead role. He was far from the worst actor in the movie and damn if he wasn’t hella pretty to look at. The former model was the best thing in the movie, but sadly that’s not saying much.
Update: Sorry Yani, good point. The French one was called “You’ll get over it” or something and yes he had a brother who was a boxer. The U.S. one was “Four letter word”. The only good thing about that one was seeing David from Someone in a Tree in the nude yoga scene.
I’m having a very lazy Saturday today, partly because I’m still not up to full speed and partly because all my friends are out of town, sick themselves or busy. So I’ve just sat and watched an old Batman. I love the mythology behind superheros and their evolution. I think the appeal of Batman is that he doesn’t actually have a super power, just truckloads of gadgets, knowledge, training and passion.
It got me thinking. What would you want as your super power? Growing up swimming and at the beach I always loved the idea of Aquaman, but let’s face it, he’s a little average on dry land. I would love to be able to fly, it would really come in handy, especially given Sydney’s traffic problems at the moment. The other bonus is that you could get away with some bad food and not worry about your abs, they are built in to your costume. Handy.
I’ve just walked in from seeing the Sex and the City movie with some friends and I have to say I loved it. I really liked the fact that all the images that were leaked before it came out that were then supposedly part of a dream sequence, were not. But still things weren’t quite as they seemed.
The movie did make me cry several times, pushing all my buttons about never meeting the right guy, the supposedly right guy cheating on me, all that stuff that goes through the mind of the hopelessly romantic but perpetually single guy. Having said that, the first time I cried was during the wedding gown fashion shoot. I would KILL to be doing high fashion photography like that. STUNNING! And Jennifer Hudson was fantastic!
This is the trailer to a new movie called “Watch Out”. Matt Riddlehoover plays a guy who is basically in love with himself to the exclusion of all others. I know a few guys in Sydney like that, I wonder if they have blow up dolls with their photo on the face?
I watched “Shelter” this afternoon, starring Trevor Wright as Zach an artist who has sacrificed huge things to help his self absorbed sister look after her son. He finds himself in love with his best mate’s older brother who challenges him to go after what he really wants. It’s a beautifully told story and rings fairly true as a coming out tale.
Brad Rowe plays his love interest and does a good job although he seemed to be too hesitant in the love scenes. I cried a few times in the movie, first when Sean kisses Zach for the first time. It all just seemed so natural and right. As someone that constantly holds out hope for good gay cinema but is frequently disappointed, I was really happy with the way this movie was handled, even if they did use the same footage of Zach pushing his surfboard under a wave about 3 times!
So it looks like they are making a movie of GI-Joe starring Channing Tatum. Channing is one very sexy guy and I’ve posted about him a couple of times before, but when I think of GI-Joe, action hero superstar savior of the world, I think of someone a bit beefier. I’m sure he’ll do a great job and he’ll definitely look sexy. Who would you like to see as GI-Joe?
I’ve just watched Into the Wild on DVD and am kicking myself that I never got around to seeing it on the big screen. Emile Hirsch does an amazing job potraying Christopher McCandless in this true story of Chris’ adventure that sadly leads to his death.
The cinematography is absolutely stunning and Sean Penn has crafted a beautiful movie as director. McCandless obviously had some issues, people don’t just take off into the wild, literally burning money and avoiding the real world if they are totally on an even keel. A very telling moment in the movie is when he tries to start making his way home after over 100 days in the Alaskan wilderness but finds himself trapped by the wild that he initially wanted to experience. He writes in a book, with tears in his eyes, “happiness isn’t real unless shared”.
I loved Batman Begins and it looks like they’ve made The Dark Knight just as dark and as good. Given that the Joker is clearly a tormented soul, perhaps it’s fitting that it was the last film that Heath finished before his death. I can’t wait to see it.
